Rolla noticed in book released in May

A book published in May titled 101 Best Outdoor Towns includes Rolla. If you want to know more, check here and also here.

The book is available at Amazon.

I don't know anything else about the book, but I'll find out. Maybe the Rolla Public Library will get it.

Also, the ePodunk website ranked Rolla as the No. 9 great college town.

This can't be good

Oh, great, scientists have almost created "artificial life," whateverinell that is.

This can't be good.

The Associated Press reported Thursday on a research article published in the journal Science about scientists who took all the genes out of one bacteria and put them in another, different kind of bacteria. It's a "genome transplant" and "it's a step in the quest to one day create artificial organisms, part of a bigger project to custom-design microbes that could produce cleaner fuels."

Oh, sure, there's a higher cause to this, there's always a higher cause. Frankenstein just wanted a son, too.

"The experiment 'is a landmark in biological engineering,' said Dr. Barbara Jasny, a deputy editor of Science.

Seriously, this can't be good.

Read this article to find out the "benefits" of biological engineering

Exotic plants invade state park

It sound like a bad SciFi Original movie, but invasive plants do indeed take over certain areas, choking out all life but their own.

The Associated Press today reports on one case, the Maumee Bay State Park along Lake Erie at Toledo, Ohio. Exotic bamboo-like plants have choked out the wildflowers, cutting the food and habitat so migrating birds have sought other places to land. It's such a wasteland that park rangers don't take tours by it anymore.

"Environmental groups hope to slow the spread of decorative but invasive plants by persuading nurseries to stop selling them and instead promote native species," reports The AP. "Big-box retailer Meijer Inc. announced in March it is removing two invasive trees — Norway maple and Lombardy poplar — from its stores in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky."

Most exotics are all right, but some of the plants sold at garden centers and nurseries are worrisome and can crowd out the native plants that animals use for food and nests.

Japanese barberry, baby's breath, burning bush are prolific--and popular.

They're expensive to deal with; the AP reports, "The federal government spent $631 million dealing with invasive plants and animals in 2000, according to a U.S. General Accounting Office report. California, Florida and Hawaii have big problems with the invaders. Florida spent $54 million in 1999 on trying to control nonnative plants, the GAO report said.

We've run stories in The Ozarks Chronicle about native plants and exotics, and we urge you to plant natives. For more information, try the Grow Native program.

Here are a couple more sites you might try:
The Nature Conservancy
Sustainable Conservation

Good news for bald eagles (and the rest of us, too)

Something I thought I'd never hear happened Thursday: The bald eagle was removed from the federal list of threatened and endangered species.

"Today, I'm proud to announce that the eagle has returned," Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said in a conference call with reporters Thursday afternoon, according to the Washington Post's website.

Many bald eagles spend winters in the Ozarks. Around here, good places to find them from December through March are Maramec Spring Park, St. James, and Montauk State Park, Salem.

The Post reported: "During the ceremony (Thursday) morning, Kempthorne signed paperwork 'delisting' the eagle, which in 40 years has rebounded from 417 breeding pairs in the continental United States to about 10,000. The decision will take effect in a month, he said."

Fairness Doctrine

Liberal legislators say they want to "balance" the voices of Limbaugh, Hannity and other right-wing radio talkers on the airwaves, so they're talking about trying to reinstate the so-called Fairness Doctrine.

What that will do is eliminate those right-wing voices on the public airwaves, because the corporations that own radio stations will shy away from airing any political content that could cause trouble for their shareholders. They'll go back to airing non-controversial stuff like music, old-time radio programs and gardening call-in shows.

Hey, wait a minute, now, that sounds like a good idea to me. Hooray for the Fairness Doctrine!

Watermelon Boy

This morning while in the car I listened to the Beale Street Caravan program on KUMR and heard a feature on "blues food." I think the commentator was Jessica Harris, a Southern foodways writer.

She talked about watermelon, acknowledging that it can be a dangerous topic among African Americans. In fact, she said that if you were to bring up that topic among a group of blacks you would be "taking your life in your hands."

Too many black stereotypes, she said; too negative.

These negative stereotypes must have originated with Yankees, for as a Georgia-born, Ozarks-raised hillbilly, I can tell you that we rural white boys find nothing racist about eating watermelon. Nor do we find anything racist about eating fried chicken, barbecue, fried catfish, greens (turnip, mustard, collard), beans, cornbread, fried okra, or hog meat. I recommend all such food to all the children of the world, red or yellow, black or white. I'd recommend hog meat to Jews and Muslims, too, but I guess they'd pass on it.

Speaking of hog meat and stereotypes, there's a barbecue joint in Canton, Texas, where the owner has a stereotypical view of Missourians. My wife and I wanted a Texas barbecue sandwich while traveling to Houston to see her people last year, so we stopped there. I was wearing a Missouri University tee-shirt, and while standing and looking at the menu on the wall, I heard the guy behind the counter (I think he was the owner) say, "We've got plenty of pork for you Missourians." Now, if I were a liberal, I'd have taken offense at this stereotype, but I'm not, so I didn't.

"Gimme a barbecue beef for my Texas wife out in the car and Show Me a barbecue pork," I said, grinning and strengthening another stereotype.

Back to watermelons: I recall Watermelon Boy firecrackers when I was a kid. The little package of 'crackers had a colorful label with a painting of a little black boy in a watermelon patch eating a HUGE slice of watermelon. I wish I could find a print of that painting, for I liked it. I identified with it. I was a white Ozarks boy who could not ever get enough watermelon. I'd say that I have never had the chance to find my capacity of either watermelon or tomatoes, my two favorite summer foods.

As an adult, I once made a fool of myself over watermelon. It was back in the late Eighties and I was covering a University of Missouri Extension Farm Tour in Phelps County. Our last stop was at the farm of Lavern and Doris Greig, and they had a table of cold watermelon set up in the yard after the tour. I kept going back to the table and eating watermelon. I finally quit when they started laughing at me. I couldn't help myself. I'm a Watermelon Boy.

How to solve the illegal immigration problem

Well, I see on Yahoo news that an illegal immigration bill is about to be passed.

I've got the answer to the illegal immigration problem. Go here to find out the only sensible solution.

Grow something!

Whether you have a garden or not, especially if not, now is the time to plan for a fall garden. Get your hands into Ozarks soil, so you can harvest something in the fall. You don't have to do anything major. Heck, a container on the patio or deck is sufficient.

Just grow something!

Look closely to find wildflowers before they're cut down

Joplin Globe writer Carol Stark in a story published Monday notes the western edge of the Ozarks is a "crossroads for wildflowers."

The story, headlined "Ozarks roadsides show off perennial beauty," says, "Here in the Ozarks, where the forests meet the prairies and streams are abundant, wildflower varieties are plentiful, according to Francis Skalicky, a spokesman for the Department of Conservation."

The story further quotes Tony Robyn, executive director of the Wildcat Glades Conservation and Audubon Center, as saying that the ditches are rich in color this time of year.

That's true--IF you look closely and off the well-traveled roads.

To find the best selection of coneflowers, coreopsis, butterfly weed, daisies, Black-eyed Susans and Queen Anne's Lace, you're going to have to drive off the main highways onto secondary roads. Here in Missouri, the state, county and city highway, road and street departments love to get out and mow everything as quickly as possible.

As I noted in an earlier posting, the government authorities charged with road maintenance won't give the wildflowers time to set seed before mowing. I think I noted in an earlier posting that my wife and I have driven roads in Laclede and Phelps counties where someone and sprayed generous amounts of herbicide along the roadsides, laying waste to the greenery, even burning some of the lower leaves in trees.

Sure, there are other, far more important issues to write about. We're in a war. The public has no confidence in the Executive, Legislative or Judicial Branches. Our rights are under attack from both the Right and the Left. There are far weightier concerns than whether or not we have wildflowers in Missouri.

Nevertheless, as I have said often: We make a big deal in Missouri about our fall foliage. We try to use it as a tourist attraction. Why in the world don't we do the same thing in the spring and summer with our native and established wildflowers?

Here's some news: It's going to be hot this summer

The Daily Dunklin Democrat down in the Bootheel had this headline on one of its top stories today: "Missourians urged to protect themselves from the heat this summer." What followed was a news release from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services noting that it's going to get hot in Missouri this summer and summer heat can be hard on a person's health.

"Missourians need to be aware that exposure to high temperatures and humidity can cause heat-related illness and even death," said Jane Drummond, Director of the Department of Health and Senior Services.

Did you know we are observing Missouri Summer Weather Safety Week through Saturday?

I guess such a news release and a safety week are necessary, because people can be forgetful, even Missourians, and I guess there are some people who have forgotten that it gets hot in Missouri in the summer and they need a reminder.

Perhaps there are some people who don't have enough sense to wait until evening to get out and mow the yard or hoe the garden on hot days. Perhaps there are some who don't have enough sense to go inside frequently for a cold drink when they find they have to be out in the sun working.

Unfortunately, there are some who don't have enough sense not to leave children or pets in hot cars with the windows rolled up and the doors locked.

These people need such a reminder; unfortunately, these people probably aren't smart enough to read a news release from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.

Well, maybe you're a newcomer to Missouri and don't know about our summer heat. If that's the case, you can get some additional information on preventing heat-related illness through the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services' web site.

UMR name change

KUMR bluegrass radio host Wayne Bledsoe (and publisher of Bluegrass Now magazine) told me last week that our public radio station for this section of the Ozarks will be changing its name to KMST in July, an early sign of the Jan. 1 change of the campus's name from University of Missouri-Rolla to Missouri University of Science and Technology.

The radio station is changing the name early because the KMST call sign has become available and it MUST be implemented within a period set forth by the FCC. That's why the station MUST go ahead and and make the name change this summer rather than wait until Jan. 1.

Speaking of MUST, you'd think the new acronym would be MUST, but the campus leadership cringes at such nomenclature. They want the campus to be known as Missouri S&T or MST, never MUST.

I don't know what's wrong with UMR or UM-Rolla. I like the name because it puts the name of our little city on the pages of national newsmagazines and the big-city papers whenever the faculty, staff and students make news. Such publicity has almost always been favorable.

We have a new chancellor, though, and he wants to do something, anything, to stir up the folks at UMR. Changing the name will do it. There's a lot of work and about $200,000 in expenses involved in the switch. For more information about the name change go to the Name Change Conversations Page.

Professor James Bogan, who writes a column for the print version of The Ozarks Chronicle, told me his suggestion for a new name was Missouri University of Science and Engineering. Bogan, whose sense of humor can be found on the Bogantics page of his website, says his suggested name would give a new acronym of MoUSE, and the campus song could include the line "MSM/UMR/MoUSE" sung to the tune of the Mickey Mouse Club theme song. I like that idea. I like it a lot.

I've found an entertaining, informative website

Two or three days ago I stumbled across an interesting website, www.city-data.com. It's a forum site with boards for each state, as well as boards for interests like gardening and the arts.

In the state boards, people post questions about areas to which they plan to move, perhaps because of job transfers or opportunities. Others are retirees looking for a place to alight. They ask questions such as: What's the best town in such-and-such-a-state? What are the most progressive cities? Are atheists welcome? Is Missouri Midwestern or Southern? What's a redneck? Some of the answers are hilarious, which is the entertaining part of the website, but there's also some valuable information given to potential newcomers, too, such as tax rates, etc.

City-data.com is almost as much fun as www.TheOzarksChronicle.com.

Rolla students promote native grass to official symbol

The Springfield News-Leader (with the help of The Associated Press) reported this morning that Gov. Matt Blunt Monday signed legislation naming Big Bluestem as the official state grass of Missouri.

That designation came about as the result of lobbying by fourth grade students at Truman Elementary School in Rolla for the last four or five years. Back when I covered news for the local paper, some of those students, along with their teacher, Christine Schmidgall, gave me a couple of tours of their outdoor classroom, and they were mighty impressive young people.

Those youngsters had knowledge of ecosystems that far outshone what most of their elders (well, I'm talking mostly about myself) knew about how plants, animals, water and mineral resources work together. Their scientific work in the outdoor classroom overlapped into history and literature, as they studied prairies and pioneers (such as the Ingalls family).

The kids worked with Rep. Bob May to have Big Bluestem named the official state grass, so they also learned about the workings of government. They also learned about politics; this lobbying has been going on since 2003 but the legislation failed or was vetoed two or three times previously, for one reason or another.

It's been quite a learning experience for these fourth-graders (past and present), and on Monday they saw their work come to fruition when Gov. Blunt honored the youngsters and their teacher by coming to Rolla Monday for a signing ceremony.

The Springfield paper and the AP also report: "Also awaiting the governor's signature are bills creating a state invertebrate, the crayfish; a state game bird, the bobwhite quail; and a state reptile, the three-toed box turtle.

"If all the measures become law, Missouri will have 24 state symbols. Some of Missouri's existing state symbols include the state grape, the Norton/Cynthinia grape; the state mineral, galena, the major source of lead ore; and the state tree nut, the eastern black walnut."

A nice little shower, etc.

My rain gauge measured four-tenths of an inch this morning. I dumped 1.5 inches out of the gauge following last weekend's storms, so we've had a nice amount of precipitation this week. My tomato plants are looking good.

Topic 2: Rolla motorists love to honk their horns. I was sitting in traffic, second car from the intersection on Highway 63 preparing to turn left onto eastbound 10th Street. The very second the light changed, the woman in the car behind me honked for the old boy in front of me to hurry up. She didn't give him time to take his foot off the brake pedal and put it on the case. She had to have been sitting there with her hand on the horn button, just waiting, eager to honk. That's the way some of these drivers are around here; they love the sound of their own horn.

Topic 3: Is Rolla covered in dog poop? What would happen to Paris Hilton if she committed her crimes in Phelps County, Missouri? I've got the answers on The Ozarks Chronicle Forum.

Different standards

Last night while watching The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, I saw an advertisement for a movie titled Norbit, or something like that, and the announcer said it starred Eddie Murphy, the urban comedian.

I was slack-jawed and astounded as I saw the advertisement of scenes from this movie. This seems to be a movie making fun of fat urban women. Now, listen, my heritage is German on my father's side and English on my mother's side; I am lily white. Will I be a racist if I go to see this film and laugh uproariously? Perhaps this is one of those deals where it is OK for urban men to star in films that make fun of some aspect of their race or use inappropriate racial language, but it would be wrong for lily-whites like myself to participate in such behavior.

Speaking of something else I don't participate in: Black Entertainment Television. Several years ago, when Fidelity Cable added that channel to the line-up, I watched it, thinking I might be able to see (and hear) some great jazz and blues, maybe some Motown. Nope, nary a bit. Everything I saw was rap with semi-naked urban women writhing and undulating. I quit watching, and have never had any interest in BET since.

Movies like the one Eddie Murphy is starring in and the music videos and other programming on BET don't portray urban women in a positive way. Who produces these movies and videos and who is in charge of Black Entertainment Television? I doubt if Southern white hillbillies like myself are running those companies. It has to be rich white men who are trying to make urban women look foolish.

Getting my news off The History Channel

Although I spent about 30 years covering news for small-town Missouri newspapers, which made me almost a journalist, and although I now edit The Ozarks Chronicle, a monthly publication about Ozarks arts and agriculture, horticulture and history, making me a journalist 0f sorts, I don't follow news very closely any longer. I get most of my news from The History Channel and Comedy Central, with a close reading of the Springfield News-Leader two or three times a week.

Yesterday morning, while eating my breakfast of old-fashioned oats with a slice of wheat toast all washed down with black coffee, I learned that Blackbeard had been killed. My wife and i were watching a program called "Real Pirates of the Caribbean" on The History Channel. Last night, while eating a just-before-bed Popsicle, I learned that Hilary Clinton sometimes prays for God to help her lose weight. The Daily Show was making fun of a CNN program about prayer and the Democrats.

In high school civics class (a required course back in the late Sixties, early Seventies, but something I don't think they teach any longer), I learned that I should be an INFORMED citizen, so yes, I know I'm not being a good citizen by being so ill-informed. NEVERTHELESS, I believe that I'm probably more informed than the majority of Americans, because I DO read a newspaper a couple times a week, something most Americans refuse to do.

You may think that watching Hannity & Colmes (or Countdown if you're a liberal) every night makes you informed, but you'd be wrong.

OK, I think I'll go over to Moto-Mart and buy today's News-Leader.

That TB case doesn't make much sense to me

Little in the news makes much sense to me, and this extreme drug-resistant TB case is just another instance.

A young man with a form of tuberculosis in which he supposedly has only a 30 percent chance of survival goes off to Greece to his wedding even though his doctors and the Centers for Disease Control advise him not to. Or maybe they just suggested he ought to reconsider. Also, his name was placed on a no-fly list. Or maybe it wasn't put on the list until later. Heck, I don't know. There are so many stories being reported that you don't know what to believe.

Then this morning on the national news I saw his father-in-law give a statement. Turns out the dad-in-law is a microbiologist with the CDC and he doesn't worry about his daughter being around this contagious young man. Apparently he doesn't see the need to warn all the relatives bringing kids to the wedding. Is this stuff dangerous or not?

The TB guy carried it on planes and through airports in Europe and Canada. If anyone from the Ozarks was traveling at the time, they could have caught a case of it and brought it back down here to the hills. It takes eight weeks to know if you've got it, I heard. Well, if you start coughing and spitting up junk maybe you ought to have it checked out.

I guess this proves we are vulnerable to any Muslims who want to serve Allah by catching extremely dangerous TB and then coming to the United States.